Stranger Than Fiction (2006)

Director:

Marc Forster

Writer (WGA):

Zach Helm (written by)

Release Date:

10 November 2006 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Drama | Fantasy | Romance

Tagline:

Harold Crick isn't ready to go. Period.

Plot:

An IRS auditor suddenly finds himself the subject of narration only he can hear: narration that begins to affect his entire life, from his work, to his love-interest, to his death.

Plot Keywords:

Author | IRS Agent | Bakery | Audit | What If

Awards:

Nominated for Golden Globe. Another 1 win & 11 nominations

Cast

Will Ferrell	...	Harold Crick
William Dick	...	IRS Co-Worker #1
Guy Massey	...	IRS Co-Worker #2
Martha Espinoza	...	IRS Co-Worker #3
T.J. Jagodowski	...	IRS Co-Worker #4
Peter Grosz	...	IRS Co-Worker #5
Ricky Adams	...	Young Boy
Christian Stolte	...	Young Boy's Father
Denise Hughes	...	Kronecker Bus Driver
Peggy Roeder	...	Polish Woman
Tonray Ho	...	IRS Co-Worker #6
Tony Hale	...	Dave
Maggie Gyllenhaal	...	Ana Pascal
Danny Rhodes	...	Bakery Employee #1
Helen Young	...	Bakery Customer #1

Also Known As:

Killing Harold Crick (USA) (working title)

MPAA:

Rated PG-13 for some disturbing images, sexuality, brief language and nudity.

Runtime:

113 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital | SDDS | DTS

Certification:

UK:12A | Ireland:12A | Finland:K-7 | Australia:M | USA:PG-13 (certificate #42015) | Switzerland:12 (canton of Vaud) | Switzerland:12 (canton of Geneva) | Singapore:PG | Sweden:7 | Germany:6 | Portugal:M/12 | Brazil:10 | Argentina:Atp | Malaysia:U | New Zealand:M | Norway:11 | South Korea:12 | Denmark:7 | Canada:G (British Columbia/Quebec) | Canada:PG (Alberta/Manitoba/Nova Scotia/Ontario) | Netherlands:6

Filming Locations:

25th Street & Christiana Avenue, South Lawndale, Chicago, Illinois, USA

Company:

Columbia Pictures

Trivia:

The book that Professor Hilbert is reading on the lifeguard stand is Sue Grafton's "I is for Innocent."

Goofs:

Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): When Ms. Eiffel walks out of the fruit store, there's a sign in Spanish that reads "DENERO" instead of "DINERO" (money).

Quotes:

Kay Eiffel: How many people do you think I've killed?
Penny Escher: Kay...
Kay Eiffel: How many?
Penny Escher: I don't know.
Kay Eiffel: Eight.
Penny Escher: Kay, you need to...
Kay Eiffel: I killed eight people. I counted.
Penny Escher: They were fictional characters, now get up.
Kay Eiffel: Harold Crick isn't fictional. He isn't fictional, Penny. Every book I've ever written ends with someone dying; every one. Really nice people too. I wrote a book about the school teacher. I killed her the day before summer vacation. How cruel is that? And a civil engineer, Edward, the one I trapped with a heart attack in rush hour. I killed him. I killed! Penny, I killed them all.

Movie Connections:

Featured in "Siskel & Ebert & the Movies: (2006-11-04)" (2006)

Soundtrack:

That's Entertainment

Helm and Forster: The New Kaufman and Jonze?

I saw STRANGER THAN FICTION (STF) on its opening weekend, and I think it's one of the most engaging, funny, poignant movies about writing, the creative process, and human nature I've seen since ADAPTATION. While Will Ferrell is a fave in our household, I must admit this is the first time I've seen him in a movie and thought of him as the character he's playing, not as Will Ferrell. Toning down his screechy/crazy qualities without losing his ability to make audiences laugh, Ferrell stars as unassuming IRS agent Harold Crick, who loves his job, so you know his life needs an overhaul! :-) Even Harold's curly-topped sidewall haircut seems to hint that his well-ordered life is about to dissolve into craziness. One morning, it does, amid FIGHT CLUB-style captions and the plummy, ironic tones of a British female narrator accompanying Harold's thoughts and actions in the opening scene -- narration that Harold can hear along with those of us in the audience. Our increasingly puzzled, alarmed hero soon realizes he's the protagonist in a novelist's new book-in-progress -- not just any novelist, but the reclusive Karen "Kay" Eiffel (Emma Thompson), who's been suffering from writer's block for 10 years and whose novels always end with her protagonists dying! As Kay's publisher sends compassionate but no-nonsense troubleshooter Penny Escher (Queen Latifah) to help unblock her, Harold seeks help from literary professor Jules Hilbert (Dustin Hoffman), an expert on the problematic author's favorite phrase "Little did he know..." It might be a subject especially dear to a writer's heart (especially in gags like Hilbert questioning Harold on standard literary devices to see if he's the hero of a comedy or a tragedy: "Have you been invited to a country house and had to solve a murder?...To find out what story you're in, I have to find out what stories you're *not* in..."), but I found STF funny, touching, and playfully surreal as director Marc Forster and screenwriter Zach Helm prove to be the new Spike Jonze and Charlie Kaufman, only with a touch of sweetness. In addition to the excellent Ferrell, Hoffman, Thompson, and Queen Latifah, the great cast includes Linda Hunt and an all-but-unrecognizable Tom Hulce as well-meaning but unhelpful psychiatrists, and Maggie Gyllenhaal as Ana, an anti-establishment baker who refuses to pay taxes on munitions (The Clash's "Death or Glory" plays in the background when Harold visits her bakery to audit her, only to be booed and heckled by Ana and her customers. Later, Harold wins Ana over by bringing her flours -- that's right, flours, not flowers! :-). There's nice location shooting in Chicago, too. STF is well worth heading out to a theater to see, and when it inevitably comes out on home video, it'll definitely be in the Writers' Movies section of my DVD collection alongside ADAPTATION, THE SINGING DETECTIVE, and the underrated ALEX AND EMMA!